What PR Actually Does, and What It Doesn't

Ask five managers what PR is and you will probably hear five answers: press releases, events, influencer posts, crisis management or simply "free advertising". Each describes a part of the picture; none describes the whole. The confusion has a cost. If you are not clear about what PR is for, you cannot brief it properly, staff it or measure it.

A working definition

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) adopted this definition in 2012: "Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics." Three words in it matter most:

• Strategic: PR serves business goals. It is not a set of random activities.
• Relationships: the aim is lasting trust, not a single headline.
• Publics: plural. Customers are one group. Employees, journalists, partners, investors, regulators, local communities and future hires are others.

A simple way to see the difference from advertising: in advertising you pay to say what you want, where and when you want. In PR you earn attention and credibility, and other people decide what is said about you. That is exactly why it carries weight.

What PR is not

• Not free advertising. Earned coverage costs time, people and expertise, and you do not control the final text, the headline or the timing.
• Not only media relations. Journalists are one public among many. Internal communication or relations with local authorities can matter as much as press coverage.
• Not spin. Hiding problems or misleading people damages the very asset PR exists to build: credibility. Once lost, it is expensive to rebuild.
• Not a one-off. One press release a year is not a PR function. Relationships with journalists, partners and communities are built before you need them.
• Not a fix for a weak product. PR can help a good company be understood. It cannot make a poor customer experience disappear for long.

Earned, owned, shared and paid media

A practical way to organise communication is the PESO model, introduced in 2014 by Gini Dietrich of the communications blog Spin Sucks. It groups channels into four types: paid, earned, shared and owned media.

• Earned media is what others publish about you: news coverage, reviews, expert mentions, word of mouth. It offers the most credibility and the least control.
• Owned media is everything you control: your website, blog, newsroom, newsletter or podcast. It is your source of truth, but you have to build its audience yourself.
• Shared media covers social networks and online communities, where content is distributed and discussed. It allows dialogue, but platforms and algorithms decide your reach.
• Paid media includes advertising, sponsored content, boosted posts and paid influencer placements. It gives you reach and control, but people tend to trust it less, and it must be labelled as paid.

The four types work best together. For example, you publish a useful industry overview on your own site (owned), journalists cite it (earned), your team and partners discuss it on social networks (shared), and you promote the strongest piece to a precise audience (paid). Each type strengthens the others.

What PR people actually do

Typical tasks of a PR function or agency include:

1. Media relations: press releases, story pitches, interviews, press events, media lists and ongoing contact with journalists
2. Corporate communication: the company story, key messages, fact sheets and spokesperson preparation
3. Issues and crisis management: spotting risks early, preparing holding statements and coordinating the response
4. Internal communication: keeping employees informed and involved, because outsiders often listen to them first
5. Thought leadership: expert comments, articles, conference talks and research
6. Events, sponsorship and community relations, including social responsibility programmes
7. Creator and influencer relations, where PR and marketing overlap
8. Public affairs: communication with government bodies and regulators
9. Monitoring and reporting: tracking coverage, sentiment and results

Where PR fits with marketing

Marketing focuses mainly on customers and sales. PR focuses on reputation and relationships with all publics. The two overlap in product launches, brand campaigns and influencer work. In practice they need the same key messages, a shared calendar and agreed measures of success; otherwise the company speaks with two voices.

A note for small markets such as Azerbaijan: the number of journalists and editors covering each sector is limited, and people talk to each other. In my experience, a careless pitch or a broken promise is remembered for a long time. The media landscape also includes news pages on social platforms, and some of them sell placements. Know which coverage is editorial and which is paid, and label paid content honestly.

Starting from zero

If your company has no PR function yet, start with these steps:

1. List your publics and write down what each should know and think about you.
2. Write three key messages and a one-page company fact sheet.
3. Choose one spokesperson and prepare them for interviews.
4. Build a short list of relevant journalists and start talking to them before you have news.
5. Prepare a basic crisis plan: who decides, who speaks and what the first statement says.

The takeaway

PR is the work of earning trust with everyone who can affect your business. If you can name your publics, your key message for each of them and the person who speaks for you, you already have the foundation of a PR function.